Transforming a Cheap Belt Grinder into a Quality Grinder - Grizzly 2x42 Knife Making Grinder
I've wanted a 2x72" belt grinder for a long time but just didn't have the room. When Grizzly came out with their new 2x42" belt grinder I immediately bought one and went to work upgrading it to suit my needs.
This video is meant to demonstrate things that I have done to it. If you choose to alter yours, then do so at your own risk.
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Platen, platen bracket and table 0:20
Making thicker arms 2:50
Fixing flex in base 5:00
Tracking pulley arm 7:00
Dust collection 7:41
Wheel attachment 9:30
Horizontal table 10:15
Final thoughts 10:40
Grinder of Theseus
Fantastic 🤣
How…Distracting.
Should I build another grinder with everything I took off of it? Lol
@@robinson-foundry Absolutely! That would be hilarious 🤣
Hahahah
I saw the sparks going into your jar and my first thought was a fire hazard, so I'm glad you covered this for your viewers. Certain metals and combinations of metals can cause a serious problem. I see you basically re-built your grinder. Well done.
There is also the potential danger of accidentally making thermite if you just so happen to grind aluminum and iron. If the iron rusts while in the jar, the next time you go to grind, there may be a little bit more kick to your grinder than you’d wish for
@@fluppet2350 Yes, I'm very much aware of thermite and how it can melt right through the toughest of steel.
@@fluppet2350this what my first thought when seeing that.
Yeah, I like to think of it like this: Refined metals are essentially just fuels that require high temps and strong oxidizers to ignite. (IE, a poor man's thermal lance capable of melting through steel and stone alike can be made from steel tubing, 100% oxygen flowing through it, and some steel wool at the end to get the reaction started.) High surface areas like thin strands or fine dusts/chips mean your oxidizer can be weaker, like the oxygen in the air around you. Combine iron dust with heat and air, and you get a steel wool fire on steroids.
A lot of you asked about this grinder so I made a video for you. I hope it helps! Have a great weekend everyone!
Si
The best addition in my opinion is the glass dust collector. It looks so cool when there are sparks in it ❤
I ordered one of these, and it was dead on arrival, Grizzly’s support was phenomenal though, they told me a few things to check, and call back with the results, to confirm their suspicions, and once I did that, and confirmed the easy parts were not the problem, they sent me a return label so it could be sent back and replaced. Super nice helpful people on the phone. Still waiting on the new one to arrive, as I live in a remote area, but looking forward to trying it, and building a few upgrades myself!
should have sent you the replacement than wait for replacement...
@@aphleesegurtra2820 nobody does business that way anymore, they all want the non-working one in hand before a replacement gets sent out.
One of my favorite things is when people customize something that doesn't quite fit their needs. It's a smart way to make it your own. And in some cases it even saves you money.
With the amount of work you did on it, I'm not sure if you actually came out ahead vs either building a grinder from scratch or buying a better one, but the end result is pretty good.
I assume the building the rest of the machine would not be worth while. Things like bearings and wheels etc aren’t really worth replacing and complex to make.
Agreed. The House Made Revolution 2x72 would be cheaper to build than the grizzly with all his upgrades. Makes sense for him I guess.
Now i need a "Keep on grinding!" Tattoo with your High-Quality Grinder as a picture!
This was great. I don't have a belt grinder but I've often wondered how they go together, and are used and adjusted. You make is very clear.
This is a great video that shows what a talented craftsman can do to turn an okay machine into a very good machine. The beauty of it is that the average person will be able to do many of the mods with basic tools found in most garages. As usual. I find your videos informative and entertaining. Keep up the good work, I don't think there's anything you can't do!
So, a new Belt Grinder. With time, materials and any money put into it, you essentially made it a new grinder.
And pretty much doubled the price. Wouldn’t have just been easier to but the more expensive grinder?
Another great informative video. Thank you for taking the time to build, modify, film, edit and post this video.
Finally got my platten upgrade finished; I was not prepared for how much of an upgrade that was. It is like an entirely different machine! Before, with their ‘graphite impregnated backing pad’ it felt spongey when grinding, and didn’t seem to cut well, even with good belts (the first upgrade, the belt that comes with it is a joke). Now that I have a tool steel platten, it cuts like the blazes!
I was looking to upgrade my belt sander and your video give some hints, thank you~
You’re welcome! Good luck with your upgrades!
Great video! I don’t do a lot of metal working (mostly wood), but your comment about filling a void is spot on. I get by with grinders and a 12” disc sander for most of my needs. This is realistic for a guy like me.
This is actually so cool. Love your videos man!
Awesome modifications
Thank you!
NICE! was hoping for a dedicated video on this thing!
Thank you! You answered my question I asked in a previous video! I really wanted to understand the dust collection portion. You provided the right information I was looking for!
Loved the upgrades, especially the dust collection with glass jar which shows the sparks in the jar. Very innovative. Liked and Subscribed
Great video brother! You definitely maximized the full potential out of this grinder! If I had a milling machine I would probably do some of the same! Thanks for sharing all of your upgrades!
Since I was looking at this grinder this was an excellent and informative video. Thank you for doing it,
THANK YOU! I just got my Grizzle 2x42 and already started thinking about things but needed some starting points! Great timing.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for sharing this informative video, I appreciate all the work you put into making this.
This video just made me feel grinded but in a good way and what a great project, keep up the content
Awesome! This is solid gold, pay dirt! I am going to forge (eventually, Sooner than later!) I have small forge furnace I have not set up yet, but I will use it to melt 25lbs of brass .40 cal cases in order to mold cast brass knives and I was pining over not wanting to invest in a belt sander. Now I can troll pawn shops and junk stores for a cast off grinder and then pimp my ride, Robinson Forge style! Thanks brother...hope you have a good Friday on Good Friday and an even better weekend.
Great upgrade, thank you!
You are clearly talented enough why not just build a 2 x 72 from scratch. House made has some good plans cheap. I built my own take on a treadmill grinder years ago and it works well but I am fixing to start from scratch and build my dream grinder.
Your shop is very clean, nice!
Perfect job bro 👌🏼👍🏼
Excellent work. I have an older Jet 2x48 that I love to use for general work while my 2x72 sits against the wall looking rather forlorn. Both are great, just for different tasks. Like your Griz, the Jet could absolutely use some upgrades and you've given me some things to ponder. I won't be able to borrow too much from your design since the Jet is so different, but at least I can see that there's some hope for what I was thinking I might like to accomplish. One more thing on the to-do list!
Great job. Thank you 😊
Great work dude 👏👏
Custom to the max
I just wanted to say man you are really good 👍
Thanks so much!! this answers my question from a few videos back and added a lot more very interesting and useful information! Thanks again :)
Most of the forge channels I watch put their grinders in contained spaces. I know this is not ideal or available for all but people don't realize just how bad all that flying metal is for your lungs and body. Keeping it contained as much as possible is key.
The steel and abrasive dust is also terrible for any kind of machine like a mill or lathe
Considering, the amount of work you had with the high-end upgrades, you could have made this machine yourself. Maybe it would have been easier and less timeconsuming. But never the less, nice build/ upgrade.
At this point if you take the material price, machine time, your time into account you could have just bout a better grinder without these issues 😂
What did that spanner do to hurt you?
It was looking at me funny.
Yes it was, thank you very much.
I'm just dead curious about how much the upgrades cost in time and materials. You did a fantastic job with it though, looks like it works beautifully, bravo! 👏🏼
Same here. If those "simple upgrades" (50% re-engineered) take the 380$ shipped price tag to 700$+ in time and materials, why not get a Premium one, or make it from scratch yourself. Since the motor AND the PSU are guaranteed to burn-up anyway. Is there Anything that you didn't have to alter, replace or will have to replace?
@@IcecalGamer my thoughts exactly. I think your guesstimate on the cost however is pretty low. My guess is that given a fair rate for the skilled labor and the amount of time and effort involved in doing these mods, not to mention all the extra tools required to do so, I would not be at all surprised if a good machine shop would charge close to $1k for all those parts, and even if you could do it all yourself you're probably looking at 20-30+ hours of labor to make and install it all, so it wouldn't really save you much. And I would think most people would probably be better served to just buy a nicer grinder to start with, even if it costs $1,200-1,500 or so.
@@justanotherfreakinchannel9069 Wanted to keep it conservative on the cost (bargain/ scrap bin cost for the raw materials on the upgrade). However, since i now read your reply and made me think more, doesn't it take more time in skilled labor, thinking about the problem and finding a solution to the sub-par product, than over-engineer it from scratch? If you make it BEEEEFY and practical (no beauty points, and no "where can we thin down the material to keep it down to a cost"), Even I could Bosh it together in 2-2.5 days Including waiting for parts delivery, and i can't cast by-metal axes :)) . Also, since the "bar" to beat is motor+psu that have 100-ish work-hours of life-span. Could you not buy them SH on the flea-market place or your choosing?
Thanks! Materials are around a couple hundred but I had a lot of fun working on it so I wouldn’t count my time really. Sure I could have bought a much more expensive machine, but I thought at the time that this one would work out of the box. One upgrade led to another and well here we are..
@@robinson-foundrySeems like you could have bought many of the things on your page for cheaper than it costed you … seems like thats not the point of this page (thank god)🤦♂️😂
Wow! What a great Idea for an alturnitive to the expensive 2x72 machines. I think your upgrades are right on point. Thank you for sharing it with us. On that note, wolud you be willing to share the .STL file for the funnel and bracket? I would like to take a closer look at a dust collection system with some safety features. Great work.
As far as cost effectiveness, would it be a better idea to purchase a better made machine, or did the upgrades save you money?
Sacrificing a wrench to the dust gods.
love the videos
I'm a new subscriber. I watched the aluminum brass alloy hatchet and liked what I saw.
I’d love to see you build a Jeremy Schmidt grinder. I use mine constantly. Could be a fun project
Cool‼
How to build a new grinder. Thanks!
I wish we had Grizzly in the UK
Shouldn't you just replace the motor now before it fails during a project? Anyway love the upgrades.
This inspires
"All you need is a milling machine, a lathe, a welder, and a few hundred dollars worth of steel and aluminum. Easy!" Lol. I think this is a great revision to their machine, but I feel that it comes more under the heading of re-engineering and scavenging parts than an "upgrade." Still, a beautiful end result.
Yeah I doubt anyone will do what I did but who knows. Thanks!
People who say “he could have just bought a better grinder” or “he could have just made one” are missing the point. Yes he could, but not everybody can. As far as I can see, these upgrades could be made without having access to other expensive machines and without having to weld: that’s good news for many of us. And many of us don’t want to drop two grand on a better grinder, but do have the spare time to make upgrades. So there.
lol well he did weld almost every part, so not too sure what you mean. also you need tools that will machine metal parts down very accurately. not super doable for most. cool video though.
Someone did not watch the video carefully enough. Missed the welded parts and the use of other " expensive " machines to get the dimensions needed to shape the ( few hundred of dollars worth of ) pieces of metal to get a " new " grinder. People who say " he could have just bought a better grinder " .... sure could have but it was an assumed impulse buy ( since he apparently read the reviews after he got his ) ..... or " he could have just made one " ...... he did just make one. Given the end of the video he comments most reviews say the motor and/or motor control goes bad so other than the bearings he should have made one from scratch and did a cost comparison to one comparable to his specs. That at least would have been productive. He ends saying he paid $380 for a tool and yet made no mention of how much he spent on material to make it how he did. I can understand not wanting to " drop two grand " but by your logic you are willing to buy a tool for $380 and then at least $200 ( that aluminum block alone would be around $80 ), then use a welder you do not have and a 4 x 6 Band Saw ( Harbor Freight $350 ) to then have a tool with a motor and/or motor control that will need to be replaced. If you have the spare time to make the upgrades, you should have at least the time to do a shred of critical thinking before making a " So there. " claim.
Both comments are perfectly consistent and logical. “I used my milling machine…” gives away the story.
I helped a paraplegic friend of mine set up one of these he bought over the weekend at the Springfield, MO Grizzly store. I didn't see any ground wire with it. Can you explain how to get it or what I need to do in order to correctly ground this so he doesn't get shocked. It looked fairly simple, like you just grounded the motor cage to the box.
dam good job
Filling that jar with water is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than you can imagine!!! If you've been grinding aluminum, and then grind some iron on top of it (especially rusty iron) they combine and are essentially THERMITE!!!!! Which will IGNITE and melt RIGHT THROUGH THAT GLASS JAR, YOUR FEET, (even your steel toe protection!) AND EVEN THE CONCRETE OF THE FLOOR!!! (well, that's a bit of an exaggeration... it would have to be a REALLY large amount, the exact ratio of Al to FeO2 and even then it wouldn't burn THROUGH it unless it was burning for at least 30 mins... but that jar isn't big enough to hold enough for that type of disaster) You probably already know this tho, but I figured I would mentioned it.... Also is VERY GOOD PRACTICE to just empty the jar before switching up metal types... or just every time you have to grind aluminum just empty it afterwards, because the water won't matter if you only have a bit in there and it evaporates right under the spark shower and all it takes it one hot spark to land on a piece of aluminum for it to start burning and then it won't matter how much water is in that jar... so just keep the aluminum out of the jar and just empty every time you grind it :) Better safe than sorry, right?
I just bought the 2x72 classic grizzly. For $500 at a pawn shop. Pissed, this is cheaper and has a vfd… looks like I’m ordering ine
Nice mods!
Thanks!
Yeah great job, expensive upgrade but worth it, as it will last years
I hope somebody as Grizzly sees this video. It looks like it would be very easy to make some improvements.
Looks like you just taught yourself how to make high-end custom built belt grinders that you could sell to blacksmiths and tool enthusiasts. Wish I would’ve thought of that myself.
Might you have build schematics for the new parts you made? I want to rebuild my 2x42.
Awesome video! What bandsaw model do you have?
Thank you! I have one of the 6x4” bandsaws that you see all over the place. Mine is from harbor freight.
Hey man. I just ordered this belt grinder. Anyway I can buy these upgrades you made ? Let me know.
Can you post the the pattetns or dimensions of the parts you made as well as the material.
Where did u get the original belt sander from? Does that one come from harbor freight?
Nice video as I just received one but if your going to go to all this work and material costs a person may as well just buy a Dictator kit. You do nice work though. Never got a grounding cable with mine.
I'm amazed at the entire culture built around enhancing these cheap chinese made tools. I'm all for modification to fit a particular need. But there's a limit. This is way past the limit where I ask, what is my time worth? Are we making knives or making tools? $3k on a CC, get a Burr King, start making stuff for sale next week to pay it off.
How I upgraded my grinder,by replacing almost every part. Lol. Nice video, but I do wonder if just buying a better grinder would have been better for you instead of changing out loads of thus one.
Why did you grind wrench?
How does the mason jar screw into the piping? What adapter is that?
Theseus' Belt Grinder
I was thinking the same thing! 😂
Do you have a link to that catchall for the metal shavings?
KZhead suggested your video because I was searching if bench grinder attachement existed. I was searching because I don’t us one of the wheel on mine and I was hopping to find a belt grinder attachement I found one like 250$ do you have an opinion on that ? Why doesn’t that more common ?
I was going t9 pull the trigger on one of these but the reviews didnt look too good. Did grizzly ever fix the issues with the motor/vfd?
I ordered the 2x42 at the end of last year. Shipping got delayed by four months because they were doing rebuild to fix some issues. My grizzly 2x42 came two weeks ago and it’s pretty good for price and size. I need to make the modifications he did.
If the motor fails, you can replace it with something a bit more powerful, so it wouldn't be a huge shame.
Bro bought a motor and built a belt grinder around it, except the motor isn't good either
What’s the STL file for the 3D printer funnel?
If you were to replace the motor, what motor would you replace it with?.....
A servo motor of some sort most likely.
So, basically just build your own grinder in the first place. Got it.
Good ideas, but it seems like you would of been better off to take the 300 and build a really high end unit from scratch!
So what you're telling us, is not not buy this sub par grinder?
These fixes are all nice and well thought out, but man, I can't help but think it's preferable to just get a better grinder. Disregarding time, it seems like you'd damn near double up the cost of the grinder when it's all said and done. Still, I get that money's tight for people especially when starting out, and some enginuity can, uh, polish a turd. :D
I hate to say this, but have you considered just yk. Making your own RF 2x42 custom grinder? at this point it'll prob be better lmao
Microphone audio quality is quite distracting. There is a background static.
Keep in mind, grinding Aluminium and steel will give you thermite in the jar 😜 don't mix those
Build a new grinder from a single block of tungsten... or maybe osmium
Sounds doable. I’ll add it to the list of ideas.
What I learned is don't buy grizzly. If you replace every part of a machine, is it the same machine?
I miss the intro 😔
Damn $380 cant even get you a quality tool these days
At this point I think you could have built a grinder from scratch 😅.
Upgrades 😂😂😂, damn near made your own grinder.
Next video… replace the aluminum coils of the motor with copper coils. Sorry but it was better to build a belt sander “from scratch”
You should have just ordered a motor and built your own machine .
Pretty much.
i think you coulda just made one for cheaper.. nice work thou
so basically, you completely rebuilt the machine
Not even close.
What I learned from this video is to not buy the Grizzly belt grinder
You should send all the flimsy parts back and tell them you want a refund and charge them for material and the time you had to make it a decent tool.
I like it!
Egg
Egg.
Egg.
Okay, I admit, I don't know in this context what "Egg" means, Yet Clearly, Three other people do... Define the slang, Please?
@@edge-climber8540 Egg